Afilias doubles .pro registrations in a year

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Afilias doubles .pro registrations in a year

Kevin Murphy, January 21, 2013, 15:29:41 (UTC), Domain Registries
Afilias says it has managed to grow .pro by 100% just one year after acquiring RegistryPro, despite an abuse crackdown and a tightening of registration policies.

RegistryPro president Karim Jiwani, speaking to DI earlier this month, said that .pro currently has roughly 160,000 domain names under management, compared to 120,000 at the time of the deal.

However, .pro lost about 40,000 domains — all Zip codes registered to former registry owner Hostway — six months ago. Excluding these names, domains leaped from 80,000 to 160,000.

Jiwani said that steep discounting and the on-boarding of a few big new registrars — notably Directi — are mostly responsible for the growth.

It’s all organic growth — regular registrations — he said, with none of the dubious type of big one-off deals that gTLD registries often rely on to show adoption.

The growth has come despite the fact that Afilias is cracking down on loopholes that have previously enabled registrars to sell .pro names to people without professional credentials.

At the time of the acquisition, registrars were accepting business licenses as credentials, but Jiwani said that this should no longer be possible.

“We’ve been trying to get to the registrars and let them now that a business license is not acceptable as a verification tool,” he said, “and we will continue to reach out to registrars and let them know.”

With some profession-specific new gTLDs (such as .doctor and .lawyer) likely to be approved by ICANN over the next year or two, Afilias wants it to be known that .pro has a broader customer base.

“What we did was try to get out to registrars and explain to them that you don’t just have to be a doctor or a lawyer to get a .pro domain,” Jiwani said.

“We explained to them that there are many, many professions in the world — from massage therapists to radiologists to tour guides,” he said. “It opened up the mindset of the registrars a little bit and they were promoting it to a wider array of professionals.”

IDNs.pro

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Karim Jiwani Leaves RegistryPro For New Industry Opportunities

DAVID GOLDSTEIN, 03 FEBRUARY 2013

Afilias Limited this week announced the resignation of Karim Jiwani, who formerly ran RegistryPro, the .PRO registry and Afilias subsidiary. In an announcement on their website, RegistryPro said that under Jiwani's tenure, the .PRO business doubled, and the registry system was successfully migrated to Afilias’ world-class technical platform.

Jiwani plans to pursue other opportunities in the expanding domain industry.

During more than a decade of service at Afilias, and 20 months in his most recent role, Jiwani made many contributions. Jiwani served, at various times, as a Director of Business Development, a member of the Board of Directors and, most recently, ran RegistryPro. More than a valued staff member, Mr. Jiwani has been a friend of Afilias since 2000. In that time, he also served Afilias in various capacities where his international business skills were beneficial to the organisation.

IDNs.pro

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在 Karim Jiwani 領軍之下, .PRO 的 成績如此亮眼;
竟然還會離職?!

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回顧 大約兩年之前 -

RegistryPro gets new CEO


Kevin Murphy, May 18, 2011, 11:52:48 (UTC), Domain Registries
RegistryPro, the .pro top-level domain manager, has appointed Karim Jiwani as its new CEO.

Jiwani seems to have been headhunted from Afilias, where he was senior director of business development. He has over 12 years experience in the business, according to a press release.

The .pro extension is one of those TLDs it’s easy to forget exists, but its recent press releases make it appear like a bit of a dark horse, on an unprecedented growth spurt.

According to its monthly ICANN registry reports, RegistryPro saw a staggering 142% growth in registrations between January 2010 and January 2011, recently passing through the 100,000 domains mark for the first time in its seven-year history.

However, on closer inspection, this uptick was largely due to a bulk registration of over 43,000 domains made via Hostway, RegistryPro’s parent company, last June.

The growth spurt appears to be a direct result of RegistryPro’s reservation of all remaining one, two and three-letter .pro domains, which it is selling off as premium names.

All possible combinations at three characters and under works out to roughly 43,000 domains.

With the new leadership, Hostway also seems to be positioning RegistryPro as a contender in market for providing back-end registry services for new gTLDs. Its CEO, Lucas Roh, said:

Our registry is poised to grow significantly in the coming years, as the awareness continues to grow for .PRO domains and our backend registry services for other TLD’s. We wanted someone that could expertly grow the registry and take it to the next level. Karim has proven experience in the domain industry and is well respected in the community. With his knowledge and passion, he is well equipped to take the company to the next level in providing registry services to registrars and other TLD’s.”

Afilias seems to be a breeding ground for registry CEOs lately. In February, the Public Interest Registry grabbed vice president Brian Cute to head up its .org business.

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